Senior Correspondent for Fairfax Media

Fatima and her son Saddam Hussain, 19. In 1998, Fatima's then two-year-old daughter Zabeen was snatched from a Chennai street, and adopted - by a corrupt adoption agency - to a family in Australia. Photo: Ben Doherty

NEW DELHI: Fatima still dreams of holding her daughter's hand, of cuddling her and hugging her.

''I will just cry, I won't need to speak, '' she says, moved to tears.

Fifteen years after her then two-year-old daughter Zabeen was snatched from outside her home and fraudulently adopted to Australia, Fatima hopes that day is closer than ever.

Parents Fatima and Salya (on the far right) attend the High Court in India in 2010 as part of their struggle to get access to their daughter. Photo: Supplied

''I have seen it in a dream, I am holding my daughter's hand. I believe she will be back with me one day.''

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Since 2005, Fatima has known her daughter was alive and living with her adoptive parents in Queensland, who were deceived about the child's origins.

But, despite entreaties to Indian authorities, police, and Australian officials, she has never been allowed to see her daughter.

Two months ago, after years of lobbying, she was allowed to talk to her daughter via Skype, albeit through a translator, as mother and daughter do not share a language.

Now, Fatima and her son, Saddam Hussain, have come to Delhi to plead with authorities to be allowed to see their daughter and sister.

They will ask for a meeting, too, with Australia's High Commissioner.

''I know it cannot be the same as before; it is too long ago. But I would like for my daughter to come back to see us, to know her [biological] parents, to know her siblings and her culture. She should know where she has come from. Even if she just comes to visit once a year.''

In 1998, two-year-old Zabeen was sitting in an auto rickshaw outside her home in Chennai when she was stolen.

Her family spent all of their savings combing the coastal southern metropolis of Chennai looking for her.

In 2005, police found that a corrupt adoption agency in India forged records to make it appear Zabeen had been abandoned. She and another child were falsely represented as siblings and adopted by a family in Queensland.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, nearly 60,000 children were reported missing in 2011, one every eight minutes.

Zabeen's adoptive parents, who, under Australian law, cannot be named, told Fairfax they were worried attempts might be made to forcibly repatriate the girl to India.

''We want to do something; we have been very worried,'' her adoptive father said. ''But we are not going to do anything unless there is an agreement that they would not try and repatriate the girl against her and our will.''